Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been looking into this for a while now. And trying to find out if you can get any diseases from getting bit from your snake or when they bite you just wash it out and put proxide one it. When dealing with wild snakes, stupid question but have you been bit and what happens when you do. Nothing just wash it off and move on, or is there more to it . The reason I started looking into this is because someone stated they fed there snake road kill and I thought well, thats a good way to get sick, but in your finding if any can you catch anything from the wild snakes or ones that eat road kill. I beleive that if you feed your snake farm raised rabbits or rats you will be ok, but the rat biting you is a different story.
Let me know
Thanks
Jeff

So, have you been bitten? Yes, I have, several times, although for handling hundreds of snakes a handful of bites isn't bad. In fact, about half of those bites were when that idiot Nigel Marvin, self-proclaimed zoologist (what he really is is a millionaire who paid his way to being a presenter) was filming anacondas with us, and pissed off the snakes so much because he had to redo his clips SOO many times that they were so ornery, once he handed them back to me, that they were out for blood. He got on his knees in the water (to make it look deeper) and pretended to wrestle with a limp, exhausted, pissed-off male. We finally had to call it quits, much to his annoyance, so that the snakes didn't get sunburned. Oops, sorry, I digress.

Anyway, you may have seen the Nat Geo anaconda documentary with me and my ex, where I am joking about getting bitten - oy, they made it look like I was serious, how much it hurt blah blah blah that's what happens when clueless editors have at a film that was taken by friends (albeit professionals)you hung out with for 4 MONTHS and so were joking 99% of the time...it's just silly.

I've never been bitten by a venomous snake, and plan on keeping it that way. Anyway, the idea that you'll get infected easily by an anaconda bite is a common misnomer, I've seen many bites and they never got infected. As long as the bite bleeds readily, which they do, that's good, yes just clean it well with peroxide and iodine. I didn't have any cleansers when I was bitten the first time, all I had was muddy river water (with interested pirana) for the first 2 hours, and I was still fine.

Road kill? Yuck, I'm surprised the snake ate it, but captivity does weird things to a creature. Personally, I worry more about a bad scratch from a cat getting infected than a bite from an anaconda. Just flush it really well and clean it like any cut, and it should be fine. Just be sure the snake doesn't start liking the taste... we've documented TWO predatory strikes of females on assistants (they didn't succeed, but we got one on camera!)

With the big ones, often times the bruise might be worse than the actual bite, those mouths are strong. But remember, if one does really latch on to your hand, the easiest way to get it to let go is counterintuitive; you have to push your hand IN to the mouth more so the snake has to let go to get a better grip, and because the teeth are recurved, if you just pull, you can tear your skin or worse - once when a large female latched on and I did the wrong thing, yanked my hand up and she snagged her biggest tooth but good, with her force and weight combined, it tore a ligament in my wrist/thumb.

Still, I've had bites just as bad from cats, dogs, and a raccoon, it goes with the territory...and never an infection.

Happy Holidays

Renee

Thanks for the response. I thought you would have some knowlege on that.
Thanks again
Jeff